It wasn’t clearer in the morning, nor the day after that, nor the day after. We stopped talking about it, but I could see he hadn’t stopped thinking about it. But each day when he said nothing and did nothing I felt that much safer.
Well, what was there to do, honestly? He either gave me up to the police or he didn’t give me up. I didn’t believe he would ever really get to the point of betraying me – and every day he left it he was more implicated himself. Anyway, he was still in love with me, or whatever it was he did feel – that hadn’t changed – and the way he’d stuck up for me at the Newton-Smiths had been an eye-opener.
But I knew that for the next few weeks, while it hung in the balance, I depended an awful lot on his goodwill, and I was sorry I’d thrown so much of it away. I had to get on the right side of him again, or at any rate not give him cause for complaint. Of course if I’d been able to make up to him like other women it would have been easy.
Then one day, about a week later, he mentioned that Roman had rung him, and had I really decided to drop all that for good? I saw at once that if I could do it, this was the way to please him, so I said I’d try going for another few weeks. I didn’t want to start again, I said, because it always made me so miserable, but I’d do it because he wished me to.
So he agreed, and I went back to Roman, and I felt that Mark had accepted this as the only way out.
About this time one of the two old blind men – the less blind one, the one called Riley – took ill and was in bed for two weeks with his heart. This was the bad time of the year for Mrs Richards’s bronchitis too, and she couldn’t help much, so I went down every morning after Mark had left and did for the blind men. I’d sometimes spend three hours a day down there, what with one family and the other. It was queer, the way those two men worked together. Even with Mr Riley in bed he would talk to Mr Davis, telling him where things were, so that Mr Davis had a sort of eye after all. They were closer than twins.
Mr Davis had a wonderful Welsh voice, and listening to him answering Mr Riley’s instructions was like listening to someone singing responses in church. ‘Over a little more to your left, David,’ Mr Riley would say, and ‘Over a little more to my left, John,’ Mr Davis would answer. ‘Mind that stool by your left ankle, David.’ ‘The stool has been minded, John.’ By the end of the third week Mr Riley was up again and they were able to start their walks. I was afraid some motorist would run them down.
What with one thing and another I hardly had time to wonder whether there’d been any other outcome of that awful dinner party, whether Mark was any more on terms with the Holbrooks, or whether the Glastonbury Trust was persuading Rex to sell any of his shares; but I did notice Mark looking very preoccupied, and he was back later than usual. I could always tell if he was thinking something about me or when he was thinking about other things. In a way I was glad he had something else to worry about; he’d have less time for me on his conscience.
Then the second weekend he said he had to be away. He was spending Saturday night and part of Sunday with his mother at the house of some man whose name I can’t remember; he said he was a second cousin or something, and did I mind if I didn’t go because they had to beat out some family matter?
I said no, of course I didn’t mind. And of course I went to Terry’s.
Perhaps I asked for it, going like that, but I was getting pretty short of money.
When I got there I found only five of them besides myself, and it was a no-holds-barred evening, as Terry called it, meaning that the limit was off the raise. I did all right for a time and then I began to lose. It was easy to lose big money tonight, and I twice borrowed from Terry. Then I got in an awful hand with Alistair MacDonald, when everyone else dropped out early, and I had a full house. I thought from his discards he had threes and we bet against each other until he ‘saw’ me, and when he put his hand down he had four sevens.
I lost forty-seven pounds that night. This is the last time, I thought. Never again, this has finished me. When we broke off the Jewish film director came across and said:
‘D’you know, Mary, you’re the best woman poker player I have ever met.’
‘Are you being funny?’ I said.
‘No. There’s only one thing wrong.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It isn’t card sense you lack. It’s a sense of knowing when your luck is in. When I’m playing, I know. It is almost like being aware of a gentle breeze. If it blows for me I know that with reasonable cards I shall make money, with good cards I may make quite a lot of money. If it blows against me I have to cut my coat accordingly. I know that if I pick up a good hand, someone else, against the run of the distribution, will probably have a better.’
‘Well, anyway,’ said Terry, coming up, ‘she ought to be lucky in love.’
‘I’ll pay you next week, Terry,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll send you a cheque.’
‘Take it out of the housekeeping. That’s if Mark gives you any.’
‘He’s generous enough that way.’
‘Interesting evening at Rex’s, wasn’t it?’ Terry said, when the film director had gone to pick up his winnings.
‘Yes?’ I said cautiously.
‘Well, yes, I thought so anyway. All that business of a man out of your past. What did Mark really think?’
‘Darling,’ I said, ‘he wasn’t out of my past. I thought that was clear at the time.’
‘Well, yes and no, my dear. It was clear that you’d had a man in your past. The point that didn’t emerge was, had it been Strutt or Mark? They both seemed to be claiming the privilege.’
‘Really, Terry, how silly you are—’
‘And Strutt’s wife looking daggers. I’ve never seen such a diverting situation. And where did your first husband come in? I honestly think you should tell me all about it.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. I met Mark. We were just friends. When the job at Rutland’s came vacant he knew I was a widow and wrote to tell me.’
‘Night, Tommy! Night, John!’ Terry called, but when I was going to move for my coat he put those fingers of his on my arm. His eyes were that gum colour again. ‘Why d’you come here, Marnie?’ he said, quite roughly for him.
I looked down at his fingers but didn’t answer.
‘I know Mark wouldn’t want you to come. Things are pretty taut between us just now. Shall I tell you why you come? It’s because you’re much more like me than like Mark. You breathe freely here. You’re not restricted by trying to behave as you think he wants you to behave. There’s no “naval discipline”. You’re not put on a charge for whispering when the admiral goes past. Why pretend to yourself? Snap out of it, my dear.’
The others had all gone, all except the MacDonalds who were still in the bedroom. I was surprised at the feeling in Terry’s voice; there was no shrug-off about this.
He said: ‘I know you’re bogus, my dear. What sort and how much I haven’t troubled to find out, even if I could. Why should I? It doesn’t worry me what you’ve been and what you’ve done. You could have poisoned your first husband for all I care. In fact, to me it would make you more interesting. Get that in your head.’
He pulled me towards him before I could stop him; but if I’d wanted to I could have stopped him kissing me. But I let him. Perhaps I saw it as advance interest on the money I’d had to borrow. But chiefly I wanted to know if I’d changed at all. An awful lot had happened to me in the last few months, and I wondered if it made any difference to the way I felt about him. Or about men generally.
It hadn’t. I got away.
He was smiling now. ‘Don’t come here again if you don’t want to; but don’t stay away just because Mark tells you. Understand, there’s no right or wrong so far as I’m concerned; there’s only survival. You’ve survived. That’s what I like about you.’
Since I went back to Roman, I had been trying to play fair with him. Because of me depending on Mark’s goodwill to do nothing about Mr Strutt etc. I had to make some effort. I felt Roman would let Mark know if I did nothing to help. It was like being a schoolgirl who’d had one bad report and couldn’t afford another until after her birthday.
So we had a sort of honeymoon two weeks, with me trying to be helpful and him not trying to probe too hard. I even went so far as to tell him I’d once stolen money and it worried me I couldn’t pay it back, but he didn’t seem very excited or impressed by that.
Somehow, though, as time went on, even though he didn’t probe, I began to talk. More things began to leak out, not only in my talk but in my memory. I remembered odd bits of events that didn’t seem to link together. I remembered looking out of the kitchen window at Sangerford at the rain splashing down the drainpipe; there was a break in the drainpipe and the water gurgled and splashed against the sill. The taste of brandy-snaps was in my mouth, so I suppose I must have been chewing them. And the heavy jangle of trucks was in my ears (we overlooked a railway siding but it wasn’t used more than twice a day). There was a man in the kitchen talking to Mother and Mother was at her most frigid. The man was trying to persuade her to do something, to sign something that she didn’t want to, and Mam kept saying: ‘Part with her? Not if it’s the last thing I do!’ I could hear her voice so clearly, but I couldn’t remember who or what she was being asked to part with.
And another time there was somebody fighting; I don’t think I was actually in it, but I remembered the heavy clump of fists and the grunting of men’s breath. And there was a woman of about forty I remembered very clearly now. She was probably a nurse from what I could recollect of her clothes, but I was scared of her. She’d got braided fair hair that had lost its colour, and a tight upper lip, and she always smelled of stale starch.
One day when things had been dragging rather, Dr Roman said: ‘Let’s see, have you one parent alive or both?’
I stopped then. ‘What d’you mean? You know they’ve been dead seventeen years, both of them.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘You’re thinking of your next patient, not me.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I was thinking of you.’
‘So you don’t believe anything I’ve told you at all?’
‘Yes, I believe a great deal . . .’ He paused.
‘Well, go on!’
‘No, you go on, Mrs Rutland.’
‘I’ve told you over and over! Dad died when I was six. I remember he used to carry me round in his arms. No one’s ever carried me round since. Coh! I wish I was back at that age now, and none of this palaver. Then maybe you could carry me around instead of leaving me floundering on this couch like a landed seal!’
‘You’d like that?’
‘I might like it if I really was six and if I knew you better. I don’t know a thing about you, while all the time you’re prying into my life. You just sit there behind me like a – like a father who’s no good. What good are you, to me or to anyone?’
‘Why was your father no good?’
‘I didn’t say that! I said you were no good. You never advise me! You never tell me anything. You never suggest what I ought to do.’
‘As a real father should?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘But yours did not?’
‘Who said not? Now you’re putting words in my mouth! When he died I had a picture book with an elephant on and I didn’t say anything but just put my head down on the book and let the tears run on to the elephant. It was a cheap book because there was a sun behind the elephant and my tears made the colour run until it looked as if I’d been crying blood.’
‘Who told you, Margaret?’
‘Lucy Nye. Mother wasn’t there and Lucy told me. I’d been playing with the kitten next door – there was an old wash-tub in the garden and a broken pram – and she called me in and I didn’t want to come and I sulked and at first she didn’t tell me why she called me in and I sat and read the book.’
Tears were running down my face and I grabbed my bag and took out a handkerchief. This was the second time now I’d cried at these sessions – really, I mean, not for effect. I felt such a fool crying there because I’d remembered something I’d forgotten and because I felt again the twist of the grief inside me, remembering that day and how I knew I’d never have complete protection or shelter or love again.
Mark had invited this Mr Westerman to dinner. Mark said he was a very old friend of his father’s, and I rather got the idea that he had something to do with the underground squabble that was going on around Rutland’s. He was a lean man of about sixty with a sharp nose and grey hair slicked back. I suppose I ought to have guessed something by the way he buttoned his jacket.
After dinner Mark said: ‘I’ve some business to talk over with Humphry, so I’m going to take him into the study for a time. You’ll be all right on your own, Marnie?’
I said I would, and after powdering my nose I helped Mrs Leonard to clear up. As I passed the study I could hear the murmur of voices, Waterman’s booming over the top of Mark’s.
When I dried the dishes for Mrs Leonard she said: ‘The first Mrs Rutland was awfully nice – a real sweetie – but she never did help like you do and it makes a difference, don’t it, just that little bit extra. She was one on her own as you might say. Often you would talk to her and all the time she was thinking of something else, you could see. Mr Rutland used to laugh at her – really laugh. You don’t often hear him like that now. They used to laugh together. You’d hear them sometimes in the mornings when I was getting the breakfast. It was lovely . . . But by midday every day she was deep in it. Books on the table in the study piled half-way to the ceiling. Then she’d be away three or four days – didn’t care how she looked – he used to join her at the weekends. They used to dig up things called barrows, or some such. Funny what interests some folks have.’
I put away the wine glasses. Funny? I wondered what sort of companionship Mark had expected from me. I mean, we laughed sometimes, and of course there was the day-to-day business of living in the same house. But there hadn’t been any real companionship, not the sort I suppose there might have been. Often he made some move and then froze off short.
Mrs Leonard said: ‘Was the lamb really all right?’
‘Yes. Lovely.’
‘I said to Mr Rogers we don’t want anything but the best tonight. It’s important, because we’ve got a bigwig coming, and one that’ll be on your trail fast enough if you sell us mutton dressed as lamb.’ Mrs Leonard tittered at her own wit.
‘D’you mean Mr Westerman?’
‘Well yes. Chief Constable and all that. I mean to say.’
‘Chief . . . Mr Westerman is the Chief Constable? Of – of Hertfordshire?’
‘That’s right. I think he retired last year, didn’t he? I ain’t sure, but I think he did. But once one of those always one of those, I say. Not but what I haven’t always been law-abiding myself. And what with that great telly aerial you have to put up, you just have to pay your licence these days.’
She went on talking. I went on drying knives and forks. Mark and this Humphry Westerman were in the study.
I felt as if someone had clamped an iron band round the top of my head and was slowly tightening it. I went on drying the things until they were all finished. I looked at the clock and saw that they had been in the study now for fifteen minutes. I thought, I can go in and ask them if they want more coffee, but if I do they’ll stop talking and wait for me to leave. And if I don’t leave, if I won’t take any of the hints, it will only delay whatever they’re discussing until another time.
Because if Mark wants to betray me, nothing will stop him sooner or later.
Mrs Leonard said: ‘I’d dearly love to have been there. Of course Mrs Bond, who used to work for the Heatons, swore that he used to come home drunk practically every night, and they . . .’
If I went out and stood in the passage I might hear part of the conversation. But Mrs Leonard would be certain to come out of the kitchen and catch me.
There would be enough lamb left for tomorrow’s lunch. We could make a casserole. We were nearly out of coffee, that sort you had fresh ground. It was twenty minutes to ten. The study had french windows that looked out on the lawn.
I said: ‘I’ll just go and look at Forio. He was restless this afternoon.’
‘Well, put your coat on, dear. It’s damp outside.’
I could hear everything if I crouched down and put my ear against the glass.
Mark was talking. I don’t think he’d been talking long – about this – but it was long enough. When it came to the point it was hard to believe. Even in spite of everything I’d thought I must be mistaken. It’s hard to believe when you listen and hear your husband betraying you.
‘. . . I had no idea, of course, when we were married. But all the same I’m absolutely convinced of one thing – that at the time she committed these thefts she was mentally distraught, temporarily unstable. And she no longer is that. You can see for yourself.’
‘She certainly seems a very attractive young woman, but—’
‘That was one reason why I asked you here, so that you could see her for yourself. Already there’s been a big change since I married her; and I’m absolutely certain that as time goes on, if she hasn’t to face criminal charges, she’ll become absolutely normal – even more normal than she is tonight.’
‘Has there been any—’
‘Wait a minute before you say anything. Let me finish. My wife is probably wanted under three different names by the police. There are pretty certainly warrants out for her arrest. But the police have no clue at all which can connect the women they want with Marnie. So if she went in and made a full and frank confession to the police of all that she had done, it would be entirely voluntary. That’s the first point. Unless she surrenders I’m convinced they haven’t a hope of tracing her. The second point is that I’d be perfectly willing to repay out of my own pocket all the money that she stole, to the persons or firms from whom she stole it. The third point is that she is already receiving psychiatric treatment, as I told you. But if she were so ordered I know she’d willingly accept any sort of additional treatment that the police or the police doctor – who must have had cases like this before – would prescribe.’
There was a pause and I crouched down as someone’s shadow fell across the window, but it was only one of them moving his position.
Mark said: ‘The one thing I’m certain of at this stage is that any sort of public charge or trial would be disastrous. Naturally I’d hate it like hell, but that’s not the important point. She’s the one who has to be considered, and at the moment she’s very delicately poised. If she goes on living the sort of life she’s living now I’m certain she’ll become – and remain – a perfectly normal, completely honest woman. But if she’s charged and sent to prison you’ll be creating a criminal.’
The blood was thumping in my ears as if there was an express train somewhere. I thought, Mark’s stretching the case, for his own ends; he’s told at least two lies so far.
Westerman said: ‘No, thanks, just water please . . . I must say it is a pretty problem, Mark.’
‘I’m sorry to let you in for it. I could, of course, have gone to a good criminal lawyer; that would have been the smart thing to do. But it happened I knew you and have known you pretty well all my life, and I thought this was an occasion to come straight to the fountain-head. Nobody can know better than you what the official attitude would be.’
‘On that point at least we agree, Mark.’
‘But on no other?’
‘Oh, I’m not saying that. But I don’t think I’m quite clear enough yet on all the facts. There’s a lot more I should want to know about your wife before making any comment at all.’
‘Such as?’
‘You see . . . No, have one of mine this time; they’re ordinary gaspers . . . You see – well you obviously want me to reflect the official attitude, don’t you. Supposing you had come into my office last year, before I’d retired; suppose that; then there’d be certain questions I’d want to ask right away.’
‘Well, ask them now.’
‘In the fifteen years I was Chief Constable I often came up against problems in which the human element conflicted with the official attitude; and often there was no completely satisfactory solution. A police official is a very decent human being, but he inevitably becomes a little case-hardened to the hard luck story. You see, he knows, we all know, that there are generally speaking three main classes of thief. The first type, who are the great majority, are very silly and careless. Their thefts are unpremeditated and often quite motiveless. You find them in our prisons, unhappy men and women who have to be locked up in defence of the laws of property and common sense, people who can’t keep their fingers to themselves, kleptomaniacs in varying degrees of addiction. Then there is the second class, the people who steal – or more often embezzle – only once or twice in their lives. They are the people who find themselves in a job where money comes through their hands or where the books can be cooked, and they perhaps experiment once or twice and get away with it, so they yield to the terrible temptation and disappear with the staff funds or with money they have manipulated at the bank. Their thefts are not as senseless or as unpremeditated as the first class, but often, indeed usually, they act on impulse, or at least with lack of real preparation and foresight.’
I waited, knowing now what was coming.
‘The third group are the clever, the intelligent ones. They are genuinely immoral – that is, they recognize right at the outset just what sort of life they intend to lead, and they proceed to lead it. They usually work out one particular line as their own and they usually go on repeating it, in general design. That’s how they get caught. But sometimes they are too clever for us and they go on and on. Now the first thing a police officer would ask himself is, into which category does the present history seem to fall?’
Mark said: ‘Yes, I recognize all that. It’s very natural and necessary to want to classify criminals. But I think if you try to fit Marnie into any hard and fast group you’d be making a tragic mistake.’
‘That may be so. I’m prepared to accept it. But you spoke of psychiatric treatment. Now, I’ve seen psychiatry and analysis do fine things for the kleptomaniac, the sort of women who will go into a shop and steal twenty-three bottles of tomato sauce or twelve egg-whisks or something equally unprofitable. Such a woman is sick, she’s mentally unstable. She may not be curable but it’s certainly worth a try. Where does – where does Mrs Rutland come in such a picture? What, for instance, persuaded you she needed treatment before you heard of these thefts?’
It was raining again now, and a cold wind blew the drops in a fine mist over me.
Mark said: ‘After our marriage she was awfully – I suppose distressed is the best word I can find for it. She seemed to feel an overbearing sense of guilt and horror. Sometimes in her confusion she almost turned against me. All this must have been very much on her mind, because she repeatedly told me I should never have married her. I think her confession to me the other night is a direct consequence of her visits to the analyst.’
Well, I thought, he’s clever. But this man isn’t going to swallow any of it . . .
‘How much do you know of her background, Mark? Is she quite open about it?’
‘She’s become more so. Both her parents were killed in the war and she was pretty well dragged up. If she—’
‘Any convictions?’
‘Not that I know of. And I’ve been into it pretty thoroughly with her.’
‘Well, of course, that would be the first thing we should check. She doesn’t know you’re telling me tonight?’
‘Not yet.’
The shadow passed the window again. Westerman was walking up and down. ‘You see, what really troubles me about your story, and what I know will trouble my successor if you put it to him, is that all these embezzlements, all three of them, were undertaken with the utmost premeditation. This isn’t a case of a girl cashier who can’t resist the notes crackling in her fingers. In each of these cases she took the job under a false name. In other words she took the job with only one end in view.’
‘I tell you, she was mentally disturbed at the time. If she—’
‘About what? Had she some reason to be mentally disturbed?’
‘That I don’t know yet. The psychiatrist should be able to tell us in due course.’
‘What’s worrying me, Mark, is how far you have deceived yourself in this—’
‘It’s one of the risks I have to take.’
‘But it’s not one that others – especially the police – will readily take.’
‘I know that, but I’m talking to you as an old friend tonight.’
‘I agree, but as your friend I have to try to help you to see this straight.’
‘And you think I’m not?’
‘I can’t answer that. I think there’s a risk that you may not be doing so.’
Nobody spoke; it was as if they were stopping to cool off.
‘Look, Humphry, tell me this. Suppose you were in my position and were convinced of the facts as I’ve told you them. What would you do?’
‘There are only about two things you can do . . . Of course embezzlement is not the most serious of crimes. But it’s a felony. You know, I wish she hadn’t done it three times; that’s really your biggest snag.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, as I say, there are really only two courses open to you. The simplest and straightest is to go with your wife to our headquarters in Hertford. Ask for Inspector Breward – he’s a very reasonable and civilized man – and get your wife to make a full and complete confession. At the same time make it clear that you intend to return all the money. She will be charged in the normal way and will come before a magistrate, who may deal with her summarily or, if the prosecution ask for it, will commit her for trial at the next quarter sessions. In any event get a first-rate man to take your case, and when she comes up he can go all out for the many redeeming features. Free and voluntary confession and surrender to the police, eagerness to return all the stolen money, the prisoner’s deep and heartfelt regret, newly married woman, first offender, etc. It will sound very well. If you get a decent judge – and most of them are only too glad of an opportunity to show they’re human beings – your wife, having pleaded guilty to the Indictment, will be bound over to keep the peace – and at once released.’
‘What would the chances be?’
‘Oh . . . better than fifty-fifty. But if by then you could arrange for her to be with child, I should say at least four to one against any sentence.’
I was cramped and stiff with cold.
Mark said: ‘That makes the whole thing completely public. And it puts her to all the mental stress of going through the normal processes of the law. What’s the alternative? Is there one?’
‘Well . . . off the record, yes, though it’s altogether more complicated. Go with her and make private calls upon each of the three firms who have lost money, express your deep sorrow at the trouble she has caused them and her earnest contrition etc., and while you are saying this show them your cheque for the amount stolen, press it into their hands and ask them as a special favour to an anxious husband if they will withdraw the charge.’
‘That sounds less complicated.’
‘Perhaps. But it’s more tricky. If you follow the first course you are at the most subject to the decision and the outlook of one man, the judge who will try her. I agree it’s a risk, he might be a man who feels compelled to make an example of her; but I think it’s the risk I personally would take. In the second course you are subject to the views of three lots of people – perhaps three boards of directors. If they are decent people they will take the money back and let the whole matter drop – though there’s a snag attached to that – but if there is one vindictive one among the three, there is nothing to stop him saying “Thanks, I’ll take the money back but I’ll still proceed with the charge. We’ve been put to a great deal of trouble and expense, and it’s necessary for the sake of other people, our customers, the rest of our staff, to make an example of this woman.” There are plenty of self-righteous people in the world. And once that has happened, if she comes to trial then, she can never stand as well with us, or with the judge.’
‘. . . and the other snag?’
‘Warrants for the arrest of the thief will have been issued. It would be necessary for the firms concerned to communicate with the police and ask for the warrants to be withdrawn. It would then depend whether the police were in fact willing to withdraw them.’
‘Would they not be?’
‘Well, they too have been put to trouble and expense. They have their duty to do, their duty to the public as a whole, don’t forget. They might at first refuse to get the warrants withdrawn by the Justices concerned . . . Though I suppose in the end, yes, after a period they would agree.’
I was wet through and shivering.
Mark said: ‘Well, thank you, Humphry. I’ve got to mull this over for a bit; then I have to consult her. Whatever I do has obviously got to be with her willing co-operation.’
‘. . . Perhaps this psychiatrist fellow might be able to advise you and her. There’s only one thing, of course.’
‘I think I know what you’re going to say.’
‘Well, I’m sure you do appreciate that by the act of telling me about your wife you have made me a party to the concealment. The fact that I no longer have an official position doesn’t affect that. If I do nothing about what you have told me I’m guilty of misprision of felony – as indeed you will be too.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Obviously there’s no immediate hurry, and I shall naturally treat this talk in the strictest confidence. But if you could give me the assurance that you will do something within a reasonable period of weeks . . .’
‘I intend to,’ Mark said.
I got in and Mrs Leonard exclaimed and said whatever had I been doing getting soaked to the skin like that, and my lovely frock; and I said Forio wasn’t well and I thought I’d have the vet in the morning, but anyway don’t say anything to Mr Rutland about me being wet, just apologize to them for me and say I have a headache and am going to bed.
I stumbled upstairs and stripped off my things and ran the bath and lay in it for a few minutes trying to take a hold of my nerves and push my brain around. But for once even lying in the water wouldn’t do anything. I mean, I was really up against it this time. I got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around me and went into my bedroom. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, a draped half-naked figure with damp hair and eyes too big for her face. My face had shrunk. I dropped the towel and dusted my arms and back with talcum powder. My legs were still damp and I rubbed them. Voices downstairs. Mr Westerman was going.
I went across and fiddled with the portable radio. It came on to Radio Luxembourg and a sudden voice said I ought to turn to the Lord; but instead I turned to some Latin American music on the Light. But I didn’t listen to it. Not properly. It was as if I’d overheard I’d got an incurable disease.
I tried to get into my nightdress, but my back must still have been damp because it stuck and I tore the shoulder strap. As I wrestled my way into it I saw my suitcase on top of the wardrobe.
I’d have to go. That was the answer. There wasn’t any other now.
I stood on a stool and got the case down; it was nearly empty but there was a bathing cap and some sun-tan oil that I hadn’t taken out since Majorca.
I heard a car start. So he was off. Suppose he didn’t trust us and rang one of his inspectors tonight.
I went to sort out some things in the dressing-table and drop them in the case. Then I stopped. It wouldn’t work. I couldn’t leave tonight. More haste etc. I shut the case and clicked the catches and pushed it under the bed.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Mark!’
‘Just a minute.’ I shut the drawers and pulled on my dressing-gown. ‘Come in.’
He came in. ‘Westerman’s just gone. Are you all right?’
‘Yes . . . I had a headache.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter.’
‘You look so pale.’
‘I feel pale.’
He stood hesitating. His eyes went round the room and he saw my frock.
‘Is your frock wet?’
‘I went out to see to Forio.’
‘Without a mackintosh?’
‘Yes.’
After a minute he said: ‘You know what we were talking about?’
‘Yes.’ I sat on the bed. It creaked as if I was double weight.
He shut the door behind him. ‘Did you listen?’
‘What does it feel like to behave like Judas?’
‘Is that the way you see it?’
‘How d’you expect me to see it?’
He dragged over a bedroom chair and sat on it, quite close to me, quietly facing me. I pulled the dressing-gown across my knees.
‘Marnie, it isn’t a thing I could talk over with you any more. I had to make the choice myself, after weighing up the risks and the probabilities.’
‘You did that, I’m sure. Sneaking to the highest policeman you could—’
‘I’m not being moral or superior or righteous, I’m just trying to use my common sense. I wish you’d use yours.’
‘Perhaps I could if it was your liberty that was at stake.’
‘If it was my liberty that was at stake I’d do exactly the same. Don’t you see, you can’t just go on living in a dream world until something else happens? I’m by no means sure that Strutt is satisfied by what we’ve told him. What’s to stop him making some further inquiries? It’s no good appealing to the judge then, or offering to pay the money back. We have to make the first move. Otherwise you’ll get three years as certainly as you are sitting here looking so hurt and so beautiful. You wouldn’t have the luxury of three baths a day, and daily rides, and poker with Terry; and maybe that lovely fresh skin would react badly to three years indoors—’
‘D’you think I don’t know all that!’ I shouted, getting up. ‘Don’t you see what you’re doing – what you’ve flaming-well done! If I go to prison it’ll be your bleeding fault and no one else’s! You’ve ratted on me – like a dirty rat – like a dirty crawling rat – a dirty filthy crawling—’
He got me by the shoulders and shook me. He shook me till my teeth clicked.
‘You’re terrified, you fool. I know that! So would I be. But can’t you use your head at all! This way, you stand a good chance of coming out of it with no harm whatever. If we act now, but only if we do, only if we spike their guns by following up what I’ve begun tonight, you may be absolutely free.’
I tried to wrench myself away. I haven’t lived delicate and I know how to fight and I tried to get away. So while we ranted at each other we scrapped too.
So when he’d got my arms behind my back I gave up and just stood there and he said: ‘D’you know I understand you better when you go back to being a street urchin . . .’
‘You filthy—,’ I said.
He kissed me. I could have spat at him but I didn’t.
‘Listen again,’ he said. ‘I agree with Westerman that open confession is the safest way. But I know you won’t stand for that. And I don’t want it either. The way to get you free without stigma is by approaching these people privately. I’ll approach them to begin, not you. I’m certain— Are you listening?’
‘Westerman’ll go straight to his own kind tonight.’
‘No, he won’t. He won’t act even in a month – I know that. But we must. Aren’t you convinced?’
‘Why should I be? It’s just a dirty . . .’
‘Won’t you try to trust me?’
‘No!’
In this fight we’d had, my dressing-gown had slipped off one shoulder, and my shoulder was bare because the strap of my nightdress had given way before.
He put his hand on my shoulder and then to my disgust suddenly brushed the nylon down and put his hand right over my breast. He put his hand right round it. It was just as if he held something that belonged to him.
‘Let me go,’ I said.
He let me go. I dragged my dressing-gown up to my throat. He looked at me with a sort of grief, as if the steeliness had gone out of him.
At the door he stopped and turned the handle a couple of times, looking down at it. ‘Marnie, you said just now, would I have done the same if my liberty had been at stake? Well it is. Or if not my liberty, my happiness. I’m gambling with that just as much as I am with yours. You see, I can’t disentangle myself from you – even though I’ve tried.’
I sat on the bed again. He said: ‘It’s my future as well. If you fail I fail. Try to remember that, can you?’
When I didn’t answer he said: ‘Try hard. I don’t like fighting you. I still think of myself as on your side. I want to fight for you. In fact I will whether you want me to or not. We’re in this together.’
I thought when he’d gone how crazy it all was that even while he betrayed me he still wanted me. He wanted me, Terry wanted me, the police wanted me, Mother wanted me, all in their several different ways. I’d nothing to give him back; not Terry, nor the police, nor maybe even Mother any longer. It was best to go.